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Web Page sponsored by MILLBROOK
Millbrook, based in Bedfordshire, UK, makes a significant contribution to the quality and performance of military vehicles worldwide. Its specialist expertise is focussed in two distinct areas: test programmes to help armed services and their suppliers ensure that their vehicles and systems work as the specification requires; and design and build work to upgrade new or existing vehicles, evaluate vehicle capability and investigate in-service failures. Complementing these is driver and service training and a hospitality business that allows customers to use selected areas of Millbrook’s remarkable facilities for demonstrations and exhibitions.
Tel: +44 (0) 1525 408408
www.millbrook.co.uk/military
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12 Feb 10. Raytheon Co and partner Larsen & Toubro (LART.BO) have bid for the contract to upgrade 1,000 T-72 battle tanks in India. Defence ministry officials said India was looking to spend at least $100m in upgrading the tanks, which India bought from Russia three decades ago.
“The upgrade will increase the lethality of the T-72 tanks,” Fritz Treyz, vice president, Raytheon (India operations), told Reuters. Ratheon has a tie-up with engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro in
India. The upgrades will include weapons and computer systems and enhance its operation by night. India, one of the world’s biggest arms importers, wants to spend $50bn buying and upgrading weapons over the next five years. Treyz said Raytheon will also launch the “fish hawk”, an anti-submarine warfare weapon system next week in India. (Source: Reuters)
12 Feb 10. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway has made no bones about his determination to return the Marines to their expeditionary, door kicking roots instead of the second land army it has become in the current wars. Seven years spent fighting in Iraq encumbered the Marines with too many heavy and cumbersome vehicles designed to survive IED blasts, he says, and he intends to slim down the Corps’ battle fleet.
In December, Conway told reporters that the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), a Humvee replacement that weighs in at 22,000 pounds, is too heavy for his strategically mobile shock troops and he dispatched service buyers to shop around for a lighter version. While the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) amtrac replacement, the swimming armored infantry carrier, survived the QDR and 2011 budget exercise, the future of the troubled program remains very much up in the air. So what vehicles is the Corps buying? Lots of little jeeps. The Marines want to pay General Dynamics $37m to buy somewhere around 140 Internally Transportable Vehicles (ITV), what it calls “a highly mobile, weapons-??capable, light strike vehicle platform that is transportable in CH-??53E and MV-??22 aircraft.” The ITV comes in two versions. One is a Light Attack Vehicle configuration that the Marines are buying, jointly with Special Operations Command, for its reconnaissance and special operations units. The second is designed to haul around a 120mm rifled mortar and accompanying ammunition to provide rapid on-??call fire support to Marine rifle companies. The ITV and mortar combination pack up small enough to fit inside the Osprey. The Marines say the ITV in its different variants figures into its “distributed operations” war fighting concept where small, highly mobile, yet hard-??hitting, units operate independently over large areas. But the small jeeps don’t come cheap, they cost around $273,000 a copy. That’s a lot of money for a modern version of the “Rat Patrol” Willy’s Jeep. (Source: DoD Buzz)
17 Feb 10. The US Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has received a proposal from Boeing for the provision of supply chain services for ground vehicle support at US Army depots in Anniston, Alabama, and Red River, Texas.
Boeing